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Carmen Anthony Steakhouse
660 State St.
New Haven
Trumbull Street
203-773-1444

By ROBIN GOLDSTEIN, CLARE MURUMBA

New Haven Advocate

Published: 12/10/2004

In the first month of its life, the common wisdom goes, a restaurant is like a toddler. You expect that it will fall on its face from time to time. You expect to be brought an order that's meant for another table. You expect the appetizers to arrive after the mains. You expect the garde-manger cook to be sending out undressed salads and the sauté station cook to be burning the crab cakes. And you expect to hear distraught shouting every time the kitchen door swings open.

For all of those reasons, we almost always give a restaurant a few months to ease into its routine before writing a review (even if we are too curious not to try it immediately).

The Carmen Anthony Steakhouse didn't need the time. We have visited twice since its mid-November opening, and everything has been running smoothly. It is, after all, the fifth restaurant that Carmen Anthony Vacalebre has opened since 1996, beginning with the opening of his steakhouse in Waterbury. (There are also three popular fish houses.)

At each of our last two visits, the early-stage glitches were practically nonexistent. It is true that replicating an exact recipe is easier than doing it from scratch. Mr. Vacalebre was apparently able to generate buzz by piggybacking off the success of his other joints--the wait was more than an hour on a recent weekend night. But especially given such crowds, it's remarkable that the management could be so well prepared--and the waitstaff so able to coddle customers--on the restaurant's first week of business, as everyone here was, from the bartender to the sommelier.

"Suburban bourgeois" is the Carmen Anthony Restaurant Group's marketing scheme. It's never a good sign when a restaurant's website advertises a "nearly endless variety" and a "sophisticated ambience." It's an even worse sign when the site advertises that the slick-haired owner (who is pictured casually resting his arm on the spear of a pottery swordfish) holds a degree in "Hamburgerology" from McDonald's University.

But looks are deceiving, even in the restaurant business. Especially the looks of the outside of Carmen Anthony: The building, on a lonely part of State Street, is strictly office-park material. Inside, the newness is evident, but the architecture is also careful. Nothing is overstated. The globe lamps, for instance, are dimmed enough so that they melt like friendly orbs into the background (and remove the blemishes from the face of your date). Modern-but-not-too-modern furnishings and elaborate place settings are in sync with the gregarious, clubby buzz of humanity inhabiting them.

Clubby is the point, after all--the design touches make Carmen Anthony's feel much more like a steakhouse than do its local competitors. Rather than a hushed and awkward room with overdressed waiters or a faux-hip environment with glossy LCD screens, this is the sort of restaurant where you start out with martinis (no, not vodka) and jumbo-shrimp cocktail, and then sandwich bites of flesh between luxuriant mouthfuls of a big Cabernet. (Or a spectacular yet affordable 2000 Barolo, as the case may be--the wine list is not just impressive but also well-rounded and well-priced.)

The steakhouse is one of the most specific of restaurant genres; nothing compares to a grilled or broiled steak served with creamed spinach and other accessories. Mr. Vacalebre understands this specificity, beginning with the wine list and the superb iceberg-lettuce wedge, whose homemade blue-cheese dressing is judiciously set off by warm pieces of bacon. It also shows in his exemplary crab cakes, which are crusted with shredded potato that doesn't overwhelm the warm and resilient crabmeat within.

A man who likes his steak rare (or a woman hers) will not settle for anything less (or, more to the point, anything more), and it is particularly important at a steakhouse that such orders can be filled with precision. Here, again, one might expect a new restaurant to overcook the meat, but in our first two visits, rare orders were fully honored. The beef is crusted with spices. It is tender and juicy. It is properly seasoned. It hits the spot. It follows the formula. The New York strip and the fattier ribeye were equally good. The filet was less impressive, as filets tend to be.

There was a welcome surprise. One of the tricked-out "specialty steaks," a category we generally avoid, was much better than expected: the sliced New York Florentine. A steak should almost never be served sliced unless there is some justification. And there is: It is drizzled with olive oil that seeps into every flavorful flap of the slices, adding another layer of indulgent texture to a strip steak that has been marinated in garlic, herbs and more oil. It sits on a bed of sautéed spinach in, again, olive oil and garlic. The preparation is actually more subtle than it sounds and is evocative of a rustic Italian tagliata di manzo . The Italians, it goes without saying, do not slice their meat without good reason.

We also tried the steak Diane, comprising two small filets with a brown sauce, wild mushrooms, and artichoke hearts; the sauce was heavyhanded but decent. The artichoke hearts were, however, mismatched; the dish was more Polo Grille than we would have hoped.

We do have a general beef, if you will, with Carmen Anthony: Especially given the prices (at above $30 a plate for many cuts, Carmen Anthony may now be the most expensive restaurant in New Haven), we would have preferred dry-aged steak. We understand the expense, but wish the option were offered to those who wanted to pay another, say, five dollars.

As for dessert, the chocolate-chunk bread pudding is described by the staff as "moan-inducing." Whether the moans come from sensory pleasure or the more ambivalent and elemental feeling you'll have when an injection of white chocolate follows such an unbridled festival of eating, it's a satisfactory, if quite unnecessary, dessert. But maybe that's an essential part of the formula, too.

Robin and Clare are co-authors of The Menu, New Haven's restaurant guide (www.newhavenmenu.com).

Hours: Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 5 p.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.-11 p.m. Sun., 4 p.m.-9 p.m.

Extras:

Cuisine Steak House, American/Classic Extras Private wine lockers made available to discerning patrons Meals Served Lunch, Dinner Parking Parking garage in building; street parking when available Payment Method Price Range Expensive Reservations Recommended Services Catering, Private Parties, Carry Out Spirits Full Bar Website http://www.carmenanthony.com Wheelchair Access Entrance and restrooms accessible